Rust
by ashehole
Summary: She had told him to be careful, not that he ever listened. Warning for major character death.


She had warned him. Cinder remembers that very starkly, in black and white, as she watches him laying on the ground. She's rooted to the spot, like her mechanical parts are too heavy to move, her leg trapped to the floor.

She told him, didn't she? She told him to be careful.

His chest heaves, and Cinder breathes out in a shudder in much the same way. A trickle of blood slips from the corners of his mouth, but it's so insignificant in the face of the way his chest bleeds, the way it pools thickly beneath his body, the coppery smell that lingers harshly in the air.

His head turns, only a fraction, but she can see his eyes now. Blank. Cloudy. It's almost worst than when he was blind. At least there had been life in them.

His lips move, but nothing comes out of them.

And Cinder finds she's not trapped like she thought she was. Although she does take heavy, awkward steps in Thorne's direction before she kneels next to him. Kneels in his blood. For a second, because it's better to think about anything else but the mangled body in front of her, she wonders if blood could rust her joints.

Thorne's hand flops out, almost like it's twitching on its own. It lands on her thigh, and weak fingers press into her skin - into her real leg.

"You moron," she chokes out.

"Not the one taking time out to perch at my death bed," he says to her, a watery chuckle in his throat that she's sure is more blood than it is actual humor.

Or maybe it's both. There's always been something intrinsically wrong with Carswell Thorne, after all. Cinder's always known this, since the first second she dropped into his cell.

Her good hand reaches for his - her real hand. Her fingers are strong and hot with fear and an ache that's enveloped her chest since the moment the soldier ripped into this idiot. Nearby, the half-man, half-wolf creature lies dead, a hole in his chest even bigger than Thorne's. A fighter until the end. His grip is weak, his skin cold, his eyes unfocused.

"You shouldn't talk," she snaps out.

The muscles of his lips twitch into what could have been a smirk. His stupid, irritating smirk that she's always (never) hated. The one she knows she'll never see again after this. And if she has to risk her leg rusting with his life in her joints and to risk being caught unaware in the middle of a war to make sure she's here with him, then that's just something she has to do.

It's her fault, after all.

His, too, because she _had_ warned him, and look at how well that went. Be careful, she had whispered roughly. And he had tossed her that stupid grin, saluting her with his gun before he left her side.

He shouldn't have done that.

She shouldn't have let her control slip.

He shouldn't have been involved.

"You're crushing my hand," Thorne says. He breaks through her moment of self-loathing and pity.

Her hand relaxes a fraction.

"There, that's better."

"I thought I said to not talk," she mutters, but there's not bite to her voice. All there is is that hollow part of her chest and her inability to cry.

"Better get going," Thorne tells her. She supposes he tries to push at her hand, but it feels like nothing more than a twitch, his muscles reacting to his nerves. She supposes, that since it isn't a push, she doesn't have to go. "I don't want Cress to see me, and they'll… they'll come."

He closes his eyes.

"Not yet."

"I don't need you to hold my hand."

He's lying. He should know that she knows that, the blip in her programming alerting her to the lie.

"I'm going to hold it anyway."

Now that does make him laugh, low in his throat before it bubbles into something worse.

He's going to die, and he shouldn't be talking, and all she can see are the wounds in his body and the pallid color of his face.

"I'm so sorry, Thorne," Cinder whispers. "I didn't want to get you involved."

"That's what friends are for," he whispers back. His eyes don't open again, but his fingers wrap around hers. That's good enough.

He's going to die, and she doesn't think it matters now what she says or does. He'll be dead, and who will be there to tell the tale of Cinder letting her walls down? Not him. Not Thorne.

"I don't know how to do this without you," she admits.

But Thorne doesn't answer.

Cinder doesn't cry, but she feels like she would be if she could manage it.

Wolf comes only a moment later, his hand on her shoulder. She nods and stands up, ignoring the way Thorne still clings to her even after she's dropped his hand.


End file.
